Some women are just fortunate.  They are fortunate enough to be born with skin that is always silky smooth, whether it’s their face, shoulders or hands it seems to be naturally flawless.  I wish I would have been born with eternally youthful skin, but being that it was not the case there is some advice I can give to my younger counter parts to ensure that they have some measure of preservation of the gift of youthful skin.  It’s never too late to begin a simple skin care regimen that will pay dividends as you as you grow older and endeavor to stave off the effects of aging.

A basic skin care regimen will consist of four steps:

• Step 1: Cleansing Depending on who you ask, cleansing can be anything from a simple splash of water, to a dense formulated cream that one could mistake for a northern style soup. The key seems to be one’s choice of soap, and specifically eliminating the use of any bar soap in washing the soap. This without a doubt will ensure your skin is dried out as the oil from the soap will dissolve your natural oils which will be further removed from rinsing with water. For a gentle inexpensive cleanser, I’d recommend Cetaphil gentle skin cleanser, available at your local Rite Aid for minimal dollars.
• Step 2: Exfoliate Have you ever wondered why your husbands skin looks more youthful than yours? Believe it or not it’s his shaving routine. Now this is not to suggest you pick up a razor, but what shaving does do is exfoliate a man’s skin. Our options for exfoliation include Microdermabrasion, chemical peels and retinoids. If you choose to use a scrub a very economical and effective kit is from Lancome, but whatever kit you use be sure to avoid large grain scrubs as they damage the skin. But using a good kit once a week will remove that top layer of dead skin cells that can dull your skin, and keep your skin fresh all year around.

The coup-de-grace is the chemical peel.  Want five years off your face, then a chemical peel is the way to go.  MD Skincare makes an over the counter version which takes the edge off of the price, while taking a little longer to get the full effect at a month.

Lastly you can try retinoids which increase the production of collagen, which prevents the break down of skin significantly reducing the appearance of lines and pores.  I don’t care what any expert says, retinoids work wonders!

• Step 3: Moisturize Unless your experiencing an additional onset of puberty and develop severe acne, there is not a skin type in existence that can’t use some form of moisturizer. It’s a myth that oily skin doesn’t require moisturizers, as the main purpose of any moisturizer is to actually seal moisture in. The same moisturizer can be used on your eyes to ensure you keep the crows from landing on your face.
• Step 4: USE SUNSCREEN! I ignored this for a very long time, and it is a huge reason as to why my skin looked so old at such a young age. California sun as nice as it is will wreak havoc on your skin. I choose to use products that combine some form of UV protection on days where my exposure is not as extreme as say a day at the beach. I’m also partial to any combined product that contains zinc oxide, a great ingredient for healing any damage.

So young women use this information wisely, and take care of the largest organ you have especially from the neck up.  Happy Beautifying!